Brainstorming: XXI Century Mini Mill

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m1kemex

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Great machines are not necessarily the best machines, but machines that reach the greatest audience. In this regard, one can say that the Atlas lathes were some of the most successful machines of all times. If I remember correctly, over half million were produced between the late 30s and the early 80s; that's over 50 years. There is probably an Atlas lathe somewhere in every country of the world. I, for example, own a 618.

The "spiritual" successor of the Atlas is, of course, the SIEG C2, commonly known simply as the "mini lathe". I do not have figures about that that one, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's been produced in about the same quantities. Or even more.

So what's so special about such machines? That they are a commercial success, rather than a technical one. It's about the largest machine you can pack in a box and ship to the customer. They are quite affordable, too. But they are FAR from perfect.

About to hit the first quarter of the XXI Century I wonder: can we design and build the spiritual successor of such machines? How to you envision the XXI Century Mini Mill?

I ask because, after a long journey of about 25 years, I finally have my well equipped shop. So I have the resources to turn our collective ideas into real metal.
 
The Atlas is better in terms of part interchange- The Chinese product, not so much. The Atlas also had a well standardised change gear system.
 
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benmychree said:
They were not successful because they were better design and manufacture, it was because they were cheap.
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Yes. And because it fits real world logistics. Most shipping companies will not accept packages over 70Kg. And even then, the average person will have a lot of trouble moving a machine more than 40-45 Kg on their own.

Some people think they put plastic gears on them because they are cheap. But the real reason is safety. They know most customers see them as a curiosity / toy (with zero previous knowledge) and plastic gears are cheap insurance against building a reputation of selling people products that rip fingers and possibly hands. If you crash a mini lathe, as SIEG designed it, it's unlikely to cause you a major accident.
 
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On the other hand, despite shipping issues, look at South Bend Lathes, they can be crashed, but few seen with broken parts as a result, at least in my 60 or so years of observation.
 
benmychree said:
On the other hand, despite shipping issues, look at South Bend Lathes, they can be crashed, but few seen with broken parts as a result, at least in my 60 or so years of observation.
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Most lathe accidents happen when people's clothes (or hair or jewelry, or whatever) gets entangled in the turning part and "suck them in". With plastic gears in the transmission (I'm talking about the gears inside the headstock for low/high ranges), the gear teeth will (hopefully) break before hurting you badly. Although less frequently than the turning part, this can also happen with other rotating parts, such as the leadscrew.

Like I said, people think it's bad design because they do not understand the design goals.
 
m1kemex said:
Most lathe accidents happen when people's clothes (or hair or jewelry, or whatever) gets entangled in the turning part and "suck them in". With plastic gears in the transmission (I'm talking about the gears inside the headstock for low/high ranges), the gear teeth will (hopefully) break before hurting you badly. Although less frequently than the turning part, this can also happen with other rotating parts, such as the leadscrew.

Like I said, people think it's bad design because they do not understand the design goals.
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Possibly another reason for the plastic gears is not for the safety of the operator, but safety for the machine. If you crash a machine, for instance power feed the carriage into the chuck, if you have a plastic gear, it’s likely that only the plastic gear will break. If all the gears were metal, then any number of them, or more than one will break. So would you rather replace 4-5 metal gears, or one plastic gear?

And at work, I have a bigger commercial Summit lathe. 20” swing by 84” bed, with a 4” spindle thru hole. Shortly after I hired on and was training on this backup lathe, stripped one of the feed gears in the feed to the feed gear box, due to the adjustment not correct. It was a phonelic ( fiberglass like) gear. So it is just not the little cheap lathes that have this safety gear too.

Honestly, try to stop the power carriage by hand, and I bet you that plastic gear will not strip out .


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toprecyler said:
Honestly, try to stop the power carriage by hand, and I bet you that plastic gear will not strip out .
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I've never tried but I don't think you can stop the carriage feed by hand even with plastic gears. If I remember correctly the gear ratio on the headstock is 2.5:1 and the finest feed you can archive with the standard gear set is 16:1 (20-80/20-80). So a maximum of 40:1 ratio not considering the leverage of the screw itself. That's a lot of force...

But back on topic. I'm surprised nobody has said anything about the original question. What a XXI Century Mini Mill should look like?
 
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